Badgers

[Workingman]

It looks like a sledgehammer to crack a nut given the poor potential (not definite) benefits - 12% to 16%. And why the sudden rush? It is not as if millions of cows have to be slaughtered as with foot and mouth.

DEFRA does not even know how many Badgers there are - it only has estimates. In W. Gloucs it is between 2,900 and 4,500. It wants to reduce numbers by 70%. Well, if it works on the upper estimate and the lower one is nearer the truth the cull could wipe out the Badger population altogether.

[Kaz]

I know Frank, it is heartbreaking

[Diflower]

If the numbers were different I might be able to see the logic, but as it is I just don't understand it

[Weka]

They are going to do what?!?!

[Workingman]

Cull (kill) 70% of all badgers in a given area regardless of whether they have TB or not.

[Weka]

That ludicrous! Admittedly we try to do the same to possums, but then they are an introduced pest who are also killing our Forrest's.

Aren't badgers native? How on earth are they getting away with it? Is there any other reason behind it?

[Kaz]

Yes they are native, and very beautiful. I don't know how they are getting away with it Weka, everyone I speak to is against it! All I can think of is it is farmers behind this, and they have both political sway and wealth behind them in a lot of cases......You should have seen the red-faced, cut glass sounding Hooray Henry of a farmer they were interviewing on our local TV station, bleating on about how badgers were costing him money in lost cattle - he was such an idiot I could happily have hit him!

[Workingman]

Last year 30,000 cattle were put down "because of" bTB, however, over 80% of those were "precautionary" due to them being in contact with proven cases - either in the same or adjacent fields.

In any one year we lose about 50,000 cattle from a 9 million head herd due to mastitis. I don't hear any clamour for a cull of milking sheds!

[Kaz]

It is a knee-jerk reaction Frank, typical if you ask me